This thread continues to blow my mind, so many amazing photos, so much great information. It's been endlessly fascinating to hop on the Noir train to see these old images and learn the history behind places that I drive and walk past every day. I haven't recently, but only because I've been absorbed in reading the older pages (I'm on page 176 now!) and have been kind of waiting till I become "current", to avoid rehashing things that were already covered.

I have especially enjoyed the Ostrich Farm photos, the old Hollywood photos, all the great contributions about the Paris Inn, the restaurant images, match books, the gas stations, the gal photos, and the old maps. I've also liked the recent posts on Burbank, where I live! This is so great.

I've also been following the new pages, and loved the old Hollywood sign girls in the bucket photo. My wife and I do lots of hiking and exploring around L.A., and twice in the last 2 weeks, we've hiked from Burbank straight up the mountain (very steep!) to Cahuenga Peak and the Hollywood sign. The first time we hiked right down the other side and trespassed through the Hollywoodland Girl's Camp to Canyon Ave., a block east of Bronson. We were right near the spot where the girls sat in that bucket.

General question: can anyone tell me how, outside of the web, I might find old info, plans, building permits, business name records, and such? My brother suggested Building & Safety. Should I try the Central Library? Other resources? I would like to find more info on the 1518/1520 Cahuenga building, and some other Hollywood addresses.



http://wwww.dkse.net/david/Wilcox/Hotel_Mark_Twain3.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Mark_Twain.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toomuchfire/5186095880/

http://wwww.dkse.net/david/Wilcox/mtwain.jpg

I'm also curious about this place, the Mark Twain Hotel at 1622 Wilcox Ave. I'm sure it goes back to at least the 1930's. Haven't found much on web searches, USC, LAPL, etc. An interesting old building, now a transient hotel painted pink. The reviews are 1 star and review keywords seem to be scabies, crack heads, bedbugs, stains, heroin, crazy Indian owner, screaming, and spidery writing on walls. Maybe it was a nice place a few decades ago. I wonder if Mark Twain stayed there. Does anyone have an old photo of this place?

Oh: I've learned from this thread about the old double lamp posts, and see a similar one in the hotel photo? Has the city been bringing these back in some areas?

Another question: Does any have info or an old photo of 524 S. Main St? It's now a fun little place called Nickel Diner, but was also a diner in the old days, maybe a Woolworths cafeteria or coffee shop? I have been unable to find old any photos of it.

Before signing off, I must add that all the great Paris Inn posts reminded me of Robaire's (348 S. La Brea), another "visit the continent without leaving L.A." exotic locale type restaurant. I used to go there for Hollywood Sapphire Group Meetings and it was always fun. I think the space is now a restaurant called Ca'Brea, in a new building.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...NGOj_w&cad=rja
http://dkse.net/david/Robaires.jpg

Thanks again, more later!

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-O...2520AM.bmp.jpgLAPL

First of all--3940 & FredH: GREAT finds...


Back to Joan Bennett for a minute.... can't help but want to revisit her famous real-life noir moment: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=2426


Noir on screen--from Fritz (not Jennings) Lang's Scarlet Street:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-F...2520AM.bmp.jpgIMDB


Joan and cars:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-u...2520AM.bmp.jpgLIFE
1936: With a Cadillac at the studio

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7...2520AM.bmp.jpgLIFE

With her own station wagon, labeled in the grand manner with the name of a country house: BENMELDI. That's for her two daughters, Melinda (by Gene Markey), right, and Diana (by her first husband, a man named Fox, later adopted by Markey, and, apparently, then by Wanger, to whom she was married at the time of this picture). Perhaps the extensive Life spread was in part to paint the picture of domestic tranquility amid the divorces.... She'd married Wanger earlier in the year. Then came the Lang incident 11 years later. (Wanger hung around for another 14 years after that.)

Too bad the older city directories didn't have phone numbers. I looked up the city directories - wow, what a detailed resource they are! They have lists of streets showing intersecting streets with municipal numbers (addresses) so if you are looking for what block a particular address was you can figure it out there. And they are searchable with any 3-or-more character search field.

The 1952 directory is not what I call a city directory - I think it is a sort of phone book white pages but listed by street name and municipal number instead of by name then number like we are used to today. Maybe the typical white pages was given to every subscriber and businesses had to rent this sorted-by-address version. The lease notice is on on page 000a.

https://i.imgur.com/brCiKOl.png
(Source LAPL - Los Angeles Street Address Directory, 1956, May
v.1956)


What library would cover the Malibu exchange - maybe they have old phone books or city directories?

"Publisht Weekly"
 

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-4...2520PM.bmp.jpgLAPL

Perhaps a precursor to Mad?



https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-h...2520PM.bmp.jpgUSCDL

The Tajo Building, home of The Weakly Freak--hard by the home of that other great periodical, the Times.

.

Stratford Apartments Fire
 

This was another bad one:

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/9...daptfire2x.jpg
Los Angeles Times

The story and additional pictures here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2010/11...artments-fire/

Wow! the recent posts have been great FredH...3940dxer...so-cal-bear...and of course our beloved Gaylord_Wilshire.





below: A snapshot recently found on ebay.


http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/10/2nsnapclif.jpg
ebay


http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/295...lifreverse.jpg




below: Detail of the United Airlines sign

http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/7...clifunited.jpg




below: Detail showing Western Air Lines ticket office.


http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/160...lifwestern.jpg


I'm curious, did these air line/transportation venues downtown have shuttle buses to the airports? Is the bus in the photo a city bus or a western air lines shuttle bus?

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--...2520AM.bmp.jpgLAPL
1915


https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-B...2520PM.bmp.jpgGoogle Street View
2011

:previous: Now THAT is a great building! A beautiful example of Chicago Style windows.*
_____

1941 Los Angeles Guide And Apartment Directory
 

Our old friend Bert:

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/9144/38567732.jpg
www.lileks.com

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/7956/3det.jpg
www.lileks.com

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-w...2520PM.bmp.jpgjetphotos.net

Re Western Air Lines... that bus in front of its downtown ticket office looks like a Gray Line bus to me. Anyway, you bought your ticket downtown, got yourself to the airport, and got on, say a Convair 240 ...


and, if you were lucky, got to fly over downtown on your way up to SFO...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-K...western240.jpghttp://photovalet.com/372155

1941 Los Angeles Guide And Apartment Directory

Colonic irrigation....I'll pass

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/6168/29853560.jpg
www.lileks.com

Why did I just find this thread now? It's amazing!

Mickey Cohen's Home Bombed
 

Now who would want to do this to such a swell guy?

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/7...ombing2970.jpg
Los Angeles Times

Story and more pictures here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/07...s-home-bombed/

Poor Mickey!

:previous:

Looks like it was the room with the octagonal window...

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=961

The Hollywood Motion Picture and Television Museum
 

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-x...2520PM.bmp.jpgParadise Leased

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-V...2520PM.bmp.jpgParadise Leased


What could these two Hollywood buildings possibly have in common? I'd never heard of this proposed museum:

http://paradiseleased.wordpress.com/

The Garden of Allah
 

It's took me a long time to look through this superb thread. I don't think the followng clips have been posted, however I may be mistaken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvAk5-RTR0w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylUvgmX6mVA

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--...2520PM.bmp.jpgyoutube

Welcome, Trumpet-- Great videos-- I know I've never seen them. I did see the model when it was under a plastic bubble at Sunset and Crescent Heights some time in the late '70s.

GaylordWilshire:

I think you are right about the window. They probably thought that was his bedroom, but it seemed to be his closet. His 200 suits probably cushioned the blast.

The house looks about the same:

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg600...jpg&res=medium
Google Street View

Mickey's Caddy is in a museum in New Zealand!

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg827...jpg&res=medium
latimesblogs.latimes.com

Found this great postcard on e-Bay showing the USO Service Women's Club at 540 S. Olive during WWII. My mom volunteered there serving coffee and donuts every Wednesday evening throughout '43 and '44. She had wonderful memories of the WAVE's, WAC's and, as my dad and his corp buddies called them, the BAM's. (Broad A%&ed Marines). She kept in touch with a great many of them for years after the war.

I also remember her telling me that the Hollywood Canteen was originally for service men only, but after pressure from donors, became a service men and women's club in late '43.

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1...olive1940s.jpg

540 S. Olive today. It seems that even the large trunked palms are history.
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/382/540solivenow.jpg


~Jon Paul

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-h...2520AM.bmp.jpgLAPL


http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics06/00012997.jpg
LAPL

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-S...iercegsv75.jpgGoogle Street View


http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics06/00012996.jpgLAPL

Thelma Todd lying in state on December 19, 1935, at Pierce Brothers. The open gold casket was lined with orchid satin, and her hair was arranged in big blond curls the way she liked it, according to the LAPL

:previous:
It's funny some of the uses that have been found for former mortuaries throughout the Los Angeles area. Some years ago I learned that what is now the Fremont Center Theatre in South Pasadena was originally a mortuary. Another old former mortuary in Pasadena later became a restaurant.

___________________________________________________


Here's the 7th Street Bridge back in 1927. It's actually two bridges stacked on top of each other, the newer bridge having been built over the older bridge.
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/6320/picture2ows.png
USC Archive

I didn't know that there are now plans to turn the unused, lower deck into a mercado or something; I also posted this on another thread:

From KPCC (Southern California Public Radio scpr.org):

Secrets under LA's 7th Street Bridge

Jerry Gorin

http://a.scpr.org/i/b7cb7cf8251b0e78...28591-wide.jpg
scpr.org

Most of the bridges that cross the LA River are your standard single-deck bridge. They might be pretty to look at, but one of the bridges has a secret world beneath it, and there's a plan, at least, to open it up to the public. Jerry Gorin reports.

Before 1927, crossing the 7th street Bridge was a traffic nightmare. Train tracks blocked traffic on both sides and city planners knew they had to build over them. But instead of tearing down the old bridge, they built a new span on top of the old one, and the space beneath has been sitting idle for 80 years. Arthur Golding, an architect who’s always had a passion for bridges, recently began a project to convert the unused space below the 7th Street Bridge into an open-air marketplace.

“It can be a kind of Mercado – I call it the Mercado del Rio – where there are shops, restaurants, and craft and art venues.”

http://a.scpr.org/i/27e3776aae34c13c...28596-wide.jpg
scpr.org

http://a.scpr.org/i/7ea503a786a8b691...28597-wide.jpg
scpr.org

[...]

For the rest of the story, more pictures and an audio transcript, click here (you actually get more from the audio transcript).

:previous:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...3%252520PM.jpgLos Angeles Bureau of Engineering

Equally fascinating drawings of other L.A. River crossings can be found here:
http://eng.lacity.org/projects/bridg...rical_gallery/

Well you must get yourself up to the City Archives on the upperdeck at the large City Services Bldng on Vignes (its behind the MTA headqrtrs) Call them up first to go over your interests so they can pull whatever materials needed. Also- the next time you visit the Nickel Diner - take a gander at the recently hung early-forties street view I found for Monica and Kirsten- It shows that a Woolworths Five and Dime was there during that period. It suprised the hell out of them - comes from a not yet catalogued collection ----

I'm relieved to hear from you sopas_ej....I was afraid the Santa Ana winds had blown you into the next county.

______

:previous:
I'm doing alright. :) My town is a mess right now, though. Still lots of power out in sections of South Pasadena, as well as huge fallen trees blocking streets. Traffic is a mess too, being that many traffic lights aren't working.

My neighborhood was without power for 10 hours. I was even told to go home from work yesterday because the power was out. Some parts of the US have snow days; yesterday I had a wind day.

Of course I took a few pics of my neighborhood:
This, and other fallen trees, slowed me down on my way to work (and then after finally getting there, I was miffed and also excited when I was told to go home).
http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...27583007_n.jpg

http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...49879619_n.jpg

Poor Squirrelly.
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...34659674_n.jpg

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...04282529_n.jpg

But I digress.

:previous: That's some damage sopas_ej. I'm glad you're OK. I feel bad for that flattened squirrel.

_____



below: The graceful 6th Street Bridge with it's twin arches.


http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/5...idge1981wr.jpg
LAPL




below: There is so much more to the bridge than the center span. Here you can see the twin arches far left.

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/6...leadingint.jpg
usc digital archive


Sadly.....the 79 year old bridge has to come down.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov...ridge-20111119

An illustration of the proposed Beverly Hills Union Bank Building on Wilshire Boulevard, circa 1959.
(the Beverly Wilshire Hotel can be seen in the distance)


http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/4...1959drawin.jpg
LAPL





below: The Beverly Hills Union Bank Building as it appears today.

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/111...1959beverl.jpg
google street view

I've always loved the 6th Street Bridge. It's indeed a shame that it's gonna be demolished.

Here it is in 1933.
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/5...bridge1933.jpg
USC Archive

Decades later, that end of it would have a freeway running beneath it:
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/8148/picture3lwc.png
Google Street View

A Bridge Nobody Misses
 

At least I don't think so.

The Red Car Line viaduct over Pico Blvd at San Vicente. Opened in 1927 to great fan fare:

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/2...car1927970.jpg
Los Angeles Times

Story is here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/03...-red-car-line/

Still around in the early 1960's:

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg851...jpg&res=medium
LAPL

Gone now:

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg198...jpg&res=medium
Google Street View

1938 Police Shoot Out
 

Nasty business, with a couple of city marshalls shot dead:

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/6...otout19701.jpg
Los Angeles Times

Story and more pictures here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/03...lice-shootout/

The Bel-Air Fire
 

http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/2...irfire2970.jpg
Los Angeles Times

The story and more pictures here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2010/11/07/bel-air-fire/


I swear, I have never seen a picture of Nixon in anything but a grey suit :notacrook:

Thanks for posting FredH, anything with my Great Uncle Bert certainly classes up the thread!!
Rick Rovere

http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics44/00056796.jpgLAPL
Eaton Canyon after the big storm of 1943--I wonder if there still might be a hubcap or hood ornament lying at the bottom?


sopas: Glad you're ok after the winds--as much as I whine about too many trees obscuring old architecture in the L.A. core, I know that trees are essential to the character of Pasadena/SoPas and damage to them can be unsettling. I'm in nw Connecticut on weekends, and we're still clearing trees and huge limbs downed in the October 29th snow.... Nature has a way of recovering pretty rapidly, though--the oaks in my hometown of New Orleans started to come back pretty quickly after Katrina. It made me think of that series "X Years After Humans." And storms have a way of culling the weak limbs....

My vision of SoCal was formed by movies, tv, the image conjured by Jan & Dean of the the lady in her shiny red Super Stock Dodge, and news reports every fall of the Santa Anas. They haunted even a kid from the south who'd never been to California before, even before I discovered Chandler:

"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen...."

Naturally I had to go looking for the modern-day street--I assumed that any domestic archi-
tecture at all would have been wiped from the map, but not so--the 1700 block of East 22nd
Street actually has alot of its original bungalows.... but this is not 22nd Street. It's 23rd...

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-P...2520AM.bmp.jpgGoogle Street View

The palms are actually a block north, along 22nd Street; here, the phone poles match up--
even the eastward lean. George Farley lived at 1741 East 23rd--his house would have been
on the grassy patch behind the phone pole. There are still one or two small bungalows on the
street, but not George and his wife Cora's.... Cora...how can I not be reminded of The
Postman Always Rings Twice?

:previous:

Wow! Nice detective work GaylordWilshire. I looked up and down 22nd Street, but I couldn't find anything. I searched for the palm trees, but decided they had been cut down.

:previous: Good sleuthing G_W!!

That Raymond Chandler quote about the Santa Ana Winds is beautiful. I would go for long walks at night when the Santa Anas were blowing.....everything seemed so haunting and mysterious....even the sound was amazing.

The aptly named 'Desert Wind' leaving Highland Park over the Pasadena Freeway in 1980.


http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/8...avinghighl.jpg
unkown

Is this R.R. trestle still there?

_____

GaylordWilshire:

Did we ever completely settle the Hazel Glab business from a few months ago? I ran across this on the LAPL website by accident.

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/4443/00094236.jpg
LAPL

Historical Notes: Shortly after 9:00 pm on June 18, 1928, John Irving Glab was found lying next to his car fatally wounded by a .32 caliber bullet, which entered his chest, severing an artery. Unable to name his shooter, he bled to death while being rushed to the Van Nuys Emergency Hospital. When police arrived at the scene they questioned his wife, Hazel Glab; her niece, Ethyl Kaser; the gardener/chauffeur, M. A. Wilson; the maid, Mrs. Wilson; a neighbor, Mrs. J. Goodrich, and F. A. Krupp, a business owner from across the street. Both Mrs. Glab and Ms. Kaser stated that they were playing pinochle and had not heard anything unusual, but the neighbor and employees gave opposing declarations. The Wilson's stated the Glab's had been quarreling for several days prior to the killing, and Mrs. Goodrich insisted she saw a woman dash from the murder car and into the Glab home at the time of the shooting. In reconstructing the crime, police believed that the slayer was concealed in the automobile and as John Glab, 40, a wealthy retired Chicago Druggist, stepped to the running board and opened the left door, the pistol was thrust to his body and fired. The victim cried out for help and collapsed into the street, his left foot remaining on the running board of the car, with the car's ignition key laying near his right shoulder. Hazel Belford Glab was detained at the time by police for questioning, but she stuck to her original story as did her alibi Ms. Kaser. Detectives could not prove her guilt or involvement with the murder and eventually police dropped their pursuit. Glab moved on, managing to evade arrest for another eight years. Her luck would run out when her "new" wealthy fiancé, capitalist Albert L. Cheney, died mysteriously in early 1935 in Nevada while on an intended honeymoon with Mrs. Glab. Cheney had bequeathed her his estate in a will written in purple ink. It was discovered she crafted the bogus will days after her fiancés funeral, forging the testament by which he willed her his entire $400,000 estate. Glab was arrested and during this trial, authorities reopened the investigation into her 3rd husband's shooting death. On December 27, 1935, she was found guilty and was convicted of forgery and preparing false evidence, and was sentenced to Tehachapi Women's Prison for a term of 2 to 14 years for that crime. Shortly thereafter, in April 1936, Glab was convicted of second-degree murder for killing John I. Glab, the sentence being seven-years-to-life. Surprisingly, though, she was out of prison in 1943 after serving only 7 years.

Summary: Photograph article dated February 3, 1930 reads, "Photo shows Ruby Burroughs, pretty 21-year-old stenographer, questioned today on her revelations of events that preceded the murder of John I. Glab. Miss Burroughs, arrested with W. I. McIntyre [sic] after a fatal traffic accident, is declared to have told officers that McIntyre [sic] and Glab's wife, Mrs. Hazel Glab, conferred shortly before Glab was slain."

I think this is it:

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/5...lwaybridge.jpg
Google Street View

I think you're right FredH. :)

Before euphemisms went wild
 

A rainy Sunset Boulevard with the Sunset Tower Apartments in the distance, circa 1938.


http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/6...8byjohnswo.jpg
John Swope

.

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/9...looding970.jpg
Los Angeles Times

Story and additional picture here:

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/11...n-los-angeles/

He is indeed right. :) That bridge is now used by the Metro Gold Line light rail trains. It was retrofitted in the mid-1990s to be double-tracked. The first leg of the Gold Line opened for service in 2003.
http://highlandpark.files.wordpress....pg?w=600&h=448
highlandpark.wordpress.com

You can read a little blip about the bridge by clicking here.

^^^
Eaton Canyon is one of many great places to hike in the Pasadena area.

Having heard about the Santa Ana winds all the time while growing up, as a little kid I assumed that they originated in the city of Santa Ana in Orange County, hehe! The etymology of the name, though, is a bit obscure; this from Wikipedia.

I can see why they could be considered "Devil Winds," being that they can blow really hot and dry and start brush fires, and they can be very destructive, as was shown a few days ago.

The Headquarters of the Church of Religious Science at 3281 W. 6th Street in 1986.


http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3...eligioussc.jpg
William Reagh/LAPL


I was excited to see what this beautiful building looks like today......
but it appears that the 'religious scientists' tore it down and left us with this.




http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/4...urch2today.jpg
google street view.



Does anyone know the history of the earlier building?
Its obvious inspiration was the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazzo della Signoria in Firenze/Florence Italy.



http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/9...nziinpiazz.jpg
oneonta

:previous:

e_r: I recognize the newer building as one of Paul Williams's; I'm confused, though, by the older building, which you say it replaced. The Williams design went up in the late '50s... so if the older picture is from the '80s--the "Loggia dei Lanzi" seems not to have been replaced. The mystery deepens because the number on the steps does appear to begin with "32" though is otherwise unclear. But if it's not at 3281 W 6th... where was it? Or... where IS it? Could it miraculously, coincidentally still be standing on the 3200 block of some other street? Wouldn't it be nice if a little bit of Florence still stood in L.A.?

UPDATE The Founder's Church of Religious Science is the Williams Building at 3281 West 6th; but the "Florentine" building at 3223 West 6th, two blocks east, was the headquarters of its parent, the United Church of Religious Science. Sadly, it's gone, and we have the inevitable parking lot in its place:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6...2520PM.bmp.jpg
3223 West 6th St per Google Street View; what I can't explain is the facade differences of the
building on the ne corner of 6th and Vermont. It was a county building in the '80s, housing
offices for economic development; it's now the County Department of Mental Health. (Do you
suppose they could help with an L.A. obsession?)